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This is absolutely not true, corporations in the absence of state power could simply hire paramilitary forces to do whatever is necessary to get ahead. Stateles

This is absolutely not true, corporations in the absence of state power could simply hire paramilitary forces to do whatever is necessary to get ahead. Stateless capitalism would very quickly become something akin to feudalism. Just because it's true that certain regulations create economic minimums that prevent new entrants into the market doesn't mean that this is the sole thing that causes monopolies, as immense vertical integration can lower costs to the point where only the largest organizations can provide services at said lowest margin. The problem only becomes bigger once they prevent new entrants, and begin to raise prices since there is no competition.

ghostwriter 8y ago
The essence of a state is to hold a monopoly on physical force, so there's no other agent in the market providing coercion to whoever is willing to pay for it. Without this, any market that has multiple agents providing force-as-a-service based on their own code of rules, ceases to exist in a matter of weeks and simply becomes a territory of gang-rule. The state has to hold a monopoly on coercion. Once this monopoly on coercion is secured before the state, the state's only responsibility regarding the markets comes down to enforcing property rights and establishing a system of courts and judical practices to resolve disputes between free agents in the market. If such a government later decides to enter the market through nationalising industries, and/or establishing state-controlled for-profit organisations, and/or rationing/licensing entries to individual professions, it starts exercising coercion in the field of voluntarily trading agents, thus skewing competition in favor of those who is willing and is able to make deals with policy-makers. And once there's a regulation in favor of one of the players in the market, there's hardly any way for their competitors to outperform them, but to go to other policy-makers that might help to pass another set of regulations that would potentially harm the first player. And this is how monopolies are created in the first place - in the end, there's going to be a dominant player that has used all the opportunities to squeeze competition from the market through various regulations that work handy for their particular business, and at the same time prevent any other new player to enter the competition, even if they have enough money for it - precisely because they have to comply with the government regulations that already benefit the monopoly.

ghostwriter 8y ago

The essence of a state is to hold a monopoly on physical force, so there's no other agent in the market providing coercion to whoever is willing to pay for it. Without this, any market that has multiple agents providing force-as-a-service based on their own code of rules, ceases to exist in a matter of weeks and simply becomes a territory of gang-rule. The state has to hold a monopoly on coercion. Once this monopoly on coercion is secured before the state, the state's only responsibility regarding the markets comes down to enforcing property rights and establishing a system of courts and judical practices to resolve disputes between free agents in the market. If such a government later decides to enter the market through nationalising industries, and/or establishing state-controlled for-profit organisations, and/or rationing/licensing entries to individual professions, it starts exercising coercion in the field of voluntarily trading agents, thus skewing competition in favor of those who is willing and is able to make deals with policy-makers. And once there's a regulation in favor of one of the players in the market, there's hardly any way for their competitors to outperform them, but to go to other policy-makers that might help to pass another set of regulations that would potentially harm the first player. And this is how monopolies are created in the first place - in the end, there's going to be a dominant player that has used all the opportunities to squeeze competition from the market through various regulations that work handy for their particular business, and at the same time prevent any other new player to enter the competition, even if they have enough money for it - precisely because they have to comply with the government regulations that already benefit the monopoly.